There's Only One Place To Put The Blame For Russian, Chinese Fallout From NSA Spying: On The NSA

from the everything-else-is-a-distraction dept

We recently wrote about how Kurt Eichenwald's bizarre and irrational deference to his friends in the security state led him to claim that Ed Snowden is a Chinese spy, whose work was specifically designed to aid China in its attempts to attack the internet. The level of cognitive dissonance to make such an argument is quite stunning. Thankfully, most people seemed to see right through the insanity. In the meantime, over at The Guardian, John Kampfner has what might be considered the much more accurate version of the same story. It notes how the knowledge of the NSA's activities have played right into Russia and China's hands concerning their efforts to gain greater control over the internet:

Slowly but surely governance of the internet is moving from the existing mishmash of institutions and into the hands of national governments. The Chinese call this "cyber autonomy".

Authoritarian regimes are showing ever-greater confidence in restricting information, filtering, blocking, monitoring and punishing anyone who steps over the mark.

And, yes, the knowledge of what the US is doing is giving the Chinese, Russians and plenty of others greater confidence to push for their own agenda. Amazingly, and in a sad statement on the state of the US government today, the report notes that a Chinese official recently argued:
At the recent IGF in Indonesia the Chinese were, for the first time, out in force. One "expert" offered to explain to a US state department official why US human rights standards are not up to scratch and how China could help.
This is, certainly, all just political posturing from a country that has a dreadful human rights record, but as we've noted plenty of times, the loss of any semblance of a moral high ground by the US on human rights has serious consequences. But unlike Eichenwald, Kampfner doesn't blame the messenger. Instead he puts the blame squarely where it belongs -- on the US government for its activities.

American dominance of the internet is being challenged on several fronts. The Obama administration and its spooks only have themselves to blame.

Except, of course, they're using compliant mouthpieces like Eichenwald to, instead, try to blame the messenger. Nothing is going to get fixed here until the current leadership either takes responsibility or is replaced in office by those who will take responsibility.

Elsewhere, reporters for NTDTV and Boxun have been barred from events in the United States and Europe, sometimes suddenly having press passes revoked. In February 2012, controversy erupted when Zhao Yan, a Boxun correspondent who had been imprisoned in China for supplying information to the The New York Times, was denied entry to a joint White House press conference attended by Xi Jinping after a Chinese official recognized the high-profile dissident journalist. In Europe and Canada, Chinese officials have threatened to withdraw from–or indeed forced the cancelation of–an event upon hearing that NTDTV reporters would be present after organizers refused to exclude them.

Since when do Chinese officials get to say which reporters get access to the White House? Well, I guess since at least Februrary 2012, during Mr Obama's presidency.

This is galling to those of us who built it

Most of the people who've built what you all know as "the Internet" aren't famous. Or rich. Or powerful. (And many of the people who are famous, rich, and powerful are really quite unimportant: Mark Zuckerberg is a mere ignorant newbie whose primary talents are stealing others' work, scamming people, and spamming.)

If you go read the IETF mailing lists, or the NANOG mailing lists, or the Linux development lists, or any of the other places where the people doing the heavy lifting talk to each other, you'll find all kinds of people you've never heard of...but who've spent their professional lives building this place. I'm one of them, although admittedly I think my contributions are rather minor.

But whatever our level of involvement, those of us in the USA are horrified to see what our own government has done with our work. It could use it to promote freedom, autonomy, democracy, learning, health, peace, human rights -- all the positive things we could hope for. Instead it's turning it into a spying engine and directing it against its own people.

The consequences of this are vast and we probably don't even see what all of them are yet. But they're coming. This (see above) is one of them. There will be more. And the economic, intellectual, political, social impact on the USA is going to be painful.

Umm, Treasury bills: the paper promises that the Chinese have (so far) accepted in exchange for real goods.

You'd think an economist would mention the trillion (or whatever it is now) that the Chinese have of US debt as giving them a great deal of leverage, but no, Mike appears to consciously avoid all mention of (the fiat currency that's forced on us in place of) money.

Re: Umm, Treasury bills: the paper promises that the Chinese have (so far) accepted in exchange for real goods.

Money, whether gold and silver, or a fiat currency, has the value that people believe it to have. It holds its value so long as just enough is created and put into circulation to pay for the available goods and services. If too much money is in circulation, prices rise as people compete for available goods, this is the basis of inflation. If people hoard money, prices drop as sellers compete for buyers, giving deflation. Various factors, and in particular the efforts of politicians can cause either scenario, as the people faith in what their money can buy in the future, and their ability to earn in the future vary. While the details get complex, the above is the basis of how money works, whether it is gold, paper, electrons or sea shells.

Re: Re: Umm, Treasury bills: the paper promises that the Chinese have (so far) accepted in exchange for real goods.

'Ed Snowden is a Chinese spy, whose work was specifically designed to aid China in its attempts to attack the internet' he wasn't needed. the USG has managed to do things all by itself! it has totally fucked up what to date is the greatest invention in modern times, including being the greatest information transfer method. it started by the continual backing of an industry that has been so loath to adjust to the digital age, as far as distribution of it's media is concerned, that is, the Entertainment Industry, that has allowed that industry to try to take over this invention for itself when it was designed to benefit everyone. and even now, it is allowing that same industry to continue down the same road, while using it as a 'front' for spying. the end result will be separate internets, none of which will connect to any outside of the individual countries, spoiling and restricting the whole reason for the invention in the first place. and it is, as usual, all down to the total greed and absolute inconsideration of everyone and everything else by the USG and the security forces. it may have taken longer to come to the attention of everyone, everywhere, but it was bound to happen. the sad part is the continual denial of what the USG has been up to and that it has been caught doing it. instead of 'being a man' and admitting what it has done, it still tries to tar and feather everyone else. more than anything else, it's this pompous, selfish, inconsiderate attitude for the rest of humanity that everywhere else despises and the American people along with it!!